Age is more than just a number...

My uncle Bill passed away earlier this year...and I didn't know about it until I committed a family faux pas. But it was fitting.


You see, this uncle Bill was my grandmother's brother-- and he'd lived in Florida for as long as I can remember. Although I genuinely admired the guy-- I rarely saw him. If I had uncle rankings as a kid-- he wouldn't have cracked the top five (for those scoring at home: Bob, Jimmy, Jeff, Henry with cousin once removed Preston Williams as a wildcard qualifier). Even among uncle Bill's I dealt with my mother's sister's husband more as a kid.


Thus it was no surprise that I didn't know he passed until a few months after the fact... or maybe it destined to be that way...


You see, three years ago I attended my cousin Ben's wedding. I hadn't been to a family gathering in some time (my goal was to create false demand for me at these things by not showing up to everything) and naturally I wanted to avoid any "family faux pas"...so when my mother picked me up at the airport I asked her if there were any divorces, deaths or other newsmaking items I should know about...and I think all I got was that my grandmother's pug Polly passed away.



I couldn't wait to see my grandmother--it had been about 5 years since I saw "Che Che"...and she and I would always reminisce about her house in Ridgewood NJ as well as her cantankerous Aunt Sade (#1 in my aunt rankings followed by Mimi, Alice, Dottie and Hazel). One thing Sade liked to do was instigate--and whenever anyone would mention my grandmother's brother Bill and his wife Laura, she'd always slyly ask "how old do y'all think Laura really is?".



Bill and Laura were married for 50+ happy and wonderful years...they met in a day when husbands were older than wives... and although the rumor was out there that Laura was "a little bit older" than Bill (anywhere from 5 to 15), nobody knew the exact difference. Not that this mattered. They had a wonderful life together and a fantastic family. But as it's not socially acceptable to ask anybody's age, it became impossible not to wonder what their ages were.


So when I saw Che Che at Ben's wedding...I asked how she was doing and she remarked about how she'd be getting together with her brothers Jim and Bill that summer--my instigation gene kicked in and I threw out the "yes...I hear Laura's having a birthday soon..." hanging curveball she would smack into the seats.


Only instead I was greeted by a face of disbelief and confusion followed by my Uncle Chris (ranked 6th he makes the tournament but doesn't get a home game) saying softly..."no mother, Laura's not having any more birthdays." Evidently I was kept in the family loop about my grandmother's pug, but not about my Aunt Laura's unfortunate passing. After about 15 to 30 seconds of really awkward staring and stammering I excused myself to the men's room.


Was it fitting that I didn't know about either's passing until an awkward social situation more than a few months later with my grandmother? They say when it comes to love and happiness destiny does strange things...and perhaps this was just a trickle of the love that Bill and Laura shared finding its way into the life of a nephew they didn't know that well.


Later that evening I took aside my Aunt Dorothy (aka Dottie--#4)...and expressed to her how sad I was to hear that Laura had passed away. She responded by telling me her sister-in-law had led a full life..."a wonderful 95 years". My Uncle Bill was 84 at the time. I guess we finally found out.